Universal Constant
by Veail
Summary: After a battle the YJ team realise there's something not right with Nightwing. Superboy deals with the fallout as they struggle to get their leader back. Slight Aster at times.


Universal Constant.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and am making not one cent of profit from this story.

...

It takes them too long to figure out that there's something wrong.

Nightwing has always been secretive; a protective shield enforced by the Bat to safeguard himself and those he cares about. It's a good thing; usually. Not this time. They just don't know him well enough.

By the time they realise that the Nightwing hanging around on the periphery of the team isn't _their_ Nightwing, nineteen days have gone by. It takes a further three to discover exactly what's going on.

By that time Dick Grayson is long gone.

…

Day 0.

They were fighting Klarion. Always an unpredictable scene and with the losses they've sustained recently moods were strained within the team. Nightwing was keeping a low profile, unsure of his place on the team now that the knowledge of what he'd done had got out and what it had ultimately led to.

Then chaos hit like a bolt of lightning. Or maybe just a bolt of lightning hit.

Klarion is laughing, finding it hilarious, but Nightwing gets up after a few seconds with nothing more than a kooky hairdo and a smoking uniform.

That isn't normal but they don't think of the importance just yet. There are higher priorities right now.

They finish the fight and Nightwing brushes his team off when they flock around him in concern, heading for his room instead to sleep it off.

That's where he disappeared. Although they wouldn't know about it for nearly three weeks.

…

Day 4.

Tim is hanging around a lot more lately. Superboy had initially put it down to brotherly concern over Nightwing but, after witnessing Tim following Nightwing to the showers yet again, he begins to wonder if there isn't something else going on. Tim isn't usually this clingy. That moniker belongs to Dick, along with cuddle monkey and the boy limpet. No one gives hugs like Dick Grayson. Superboy found that out a long time ago.

After watching Tim come back from the showers alone, a pensive set to his mouth, Superboy decides enough is enough and corners the boy.

"What's wrong?"

Tim is evasive, answering with a half shrug along with a, "not sure."

Superboy pats the seat next to him in offer and Tim sits down, the nail of his index finger heading to his mouth. Superboy notes how the other nails are bitten down to the quick but says nothing.

Tim sighs, gaze firmly on the far wall. "Has Nightwing ever been shot?"

Superboy's eyebrows raise in surprise but the earnest look on Tim's face tells him that it's important so he thinks back. Nightwing's had more than his fair share of injuries over the years: knife wounds, blunt force trauma, broken bones, but Superboy cannot remember a gunshot wound being amongst them.

It's a testament to Dick's ability, he thinks, then replies. "He's been lucky."

Tim frowns, bites his nail again. The room is silent except for the sound of static. Superboy still hasn't outgrown watching that particular setting on the TV. Finally Tim stands and straightens his glasses. "Do me a favour," he asks. Superboy nods. "There's something on Nightwing's right shoulder. I think it's a gunshot scar but..." Tim shrugs.

Superboy stands and pats his shoulder. "I'll keep an eye out for it." he says and Tim's beaming grin of gratitude is almost as blinding as one of Dick's trademark smiles.

Or at least how they used to be, before he stopped smiling.

...

Day 6.

He doesn't get a chance to see Dick's shoulder for a while. The Nightwing costume covers a lot and Dick stopped hanging around in civvies a long time ago.

He corners Dick, surreptitiously, in the showers, and does a bit of checking out.

There's no bullet wound...nothing but smooth, unbroken skin there. While he's there Superboy gives Dick a once over, looking for any damage from the lightning strike a week ago. He lets his eyes travel up over defined legs to the abdomen and chest; every muscle earned the hard way. Unlike himself who had the good fortune to be born with pecs of iron, Dick had to work for his skills. Not for the first time Superboy feels a little humbled. He raises his gaze to meet Dick's eyes.

Dick is gawping at him.

Ok, maybe not so humbled now.

His defences kick in and he shrugs, "What?"

Dick smirks and turns back to the water, "Nothing, nothing," he says. "Just didn't realise you flew with that flock."

Superboy smiles and looks back over at Dick. Dick who's looking a little tired and frazzled recently. "Honestly though, you feeling the aster?" he asks.

Dick hits the off button for the shower and reaches for his towel to wrap it around his waist. He doesn't reply when he leaves but the strange, puzzled look he throws Superboy as he walks past sends a bolt of cold right down Superboy's spine.

He's not sure what's going on but Tim's right, this is heavy on the dis.

...

Day 9.

Huh, whaddaya know, there _is_ a gunshot scar there.

...

Day 17.

Not anymore.

...

Day 19.

There's a meeting of the team in the morning; all of them except for Nightwing.

It seems that Tim and Superboy aren't the only ones who've noticed something odd is going on. Dick appears to be far from whelmed right now.

"You mean overwhelmed, right?" He'd asked Tim with a frown two nights ago in answer to Tim's query into his wellbeing. Tim had chewed the inside of his lip, something close to fear flitting across his face for a second before he'd looked apologetic.

Superboy's respect for Robin's acting skills went up more than a few notches that night.

"Yeah, sorry, overwhelmed." He'd said. Superboy had seen something in his eyes that made him think Tim was keeping a note of all the discrepancies somewhere in that genius level brain of his.

That thought was proven true when Tim sat down at the table that morning and began to offload all the little niggling wrongs he'd noticed about Nightwing lately.

There were a lot of them.

"You think he's a clone?" Roy asks. Trust Roy to shoot for that option.

"No," Robin shakes his head. "Cloning wouldn't make a scar appear and disappear at random. Or make him forget things we've said to him the day before."

"Have you asked him about the scar?" Garfield asks

Tim nods. "On the days he has it he tells me it's from when Joker shot him...'when Batman fired me'." he air quotes. "On the days he doesn't have it, he has absolutely no idea what I'm talking about."

M'gann frowns and Superboy can tell she's thinking of brushing the edges of Nightwing's mind to see if there's anything she can pick up. He's all for it. The days of her reckless overuse of her powers are over now and he knows she'll be careful.

Besides, that little confused look on Nightwing's face whenever one of the team tries to get him into a prefix war still sends cold shivers down his spine.

...

Day 20.

The scar is gone this morning and M'gann reports at the breakfast meeting that Nightwing has no memory of Joker shooting him. "I couldn't go too deep," she says, throwing a glance to the counter where Robin is sitting, Batgirl's hand on his shoulder. "He'd detect me."

They wait for the scar to show up and wonder if it'll all be different then.

...

Day 21.

It is. The scar is there and so is the memory...plus more.

M'gann shivers and asks them about Two Face and a set of gallows, a heavy choice on a coin flip and a beating. Tim and Barbara look sick when she's finished.

Not because of the story itself and not because it never happened but because this Nightwing believes it did.

Tim fakes a bad dream that night and asks to spend the night with Nightwing.

He lies awake all night, watching.

...

Day 22.

They know.

Tim saw it happen in the early hours. He even has the security footage to prove it. Today Dick has the scar on his shoulder plus a thin, fine white line cutting through one of his eyebrows that wasn't there the day before. The prefix/suffix fascination is still missing but it seems to have been replaced with a fetish for the word Holy.

Superboy is too concerned to find it amusing.

It's more than a personality shift. They slow the tape down and watch it many, many times. There's no glow, nothing to say it's going to happen, but when they watch it millisecond by millisecond there is a distinct moment, a flicker, when the bed is empty. Infra-red proves it beyond a doubt.

Today's Nightwing is not the same as yesterdays or the day before. And unless they can stop this, he won't be the same as tomorrows.

...

Nightwing is edgy.

Perhaps he's picking up on their mood, perhaps it's something else. None of them know this Nightwing well enough to tell, but he's watching them all the time. There's a tremor in his fingers that throws off his aim when they train and his eyes are piercing even behind the mask when he watches them spar.

Like he's cataloguing their strengths and comparing them. Finding them lacking.

Or finding them a threat.

...

He doesn't come out of his room that morning. They send M'gann in to make sure he's alright and she flies out of the room with a gasp like a ghost was after her.

Superboy is poised to chase after her when he glances in the room and stops dead. Nightwing is lying in bed peacefully, too peacefully for a hyperactive acrobat. Garfield heads after M'gann after a nod from Artemis and the others step in carefully, as if not to disturb.

He's beyond being disturbed, far beyond it. There's an expression on his face, a lack of expression to be more exact, that Artemis has seen once before. Kaldur shivers and remembers and she places her hand on his shoulder in comfort.

It takes an hour but M'gann comes back, determination on her face to fix what an alternate version of herself has destroyed. They sit with her while she works and for hours afterwards. It's not something that can be healed in one go but there's evidence that she's not the first to try, there are repairs already underway, and she hopes she won't be the last. Dick is appreciative of her help and they work quickly and adeptly at sealing the cracks in his mind

Renegade's mindscape is bright and colourful and full of the sounds of calliope music and animals.

She dreams of the mission at Haly's circus for weeks afterwards.

...

The Talon takes them by surprise.

If it hadn't been for Robin then Artemis would have been killed. There's a thin, red line crossing her neck that tells them just how close it came. Nightwing is bound and tied and under constant watch the whole day. He snarls and spits insults at them, mentions the things he's done to their doppelgangers and laughs at the horror on their faces. It's a twisted parody of his already twisted cackle and it makes Superboy feel physically sick.

It's all an act to cover a small, hurting boy who never got the chance to see out his true potential.

They breathe a sigh of relief when he crosses over to the next reality.

...

After five more Talons they're beginning to work out a system of containment.

...

It nearly kills Richard Grayson when he appears.

They waste precious seconds getting into the room. Superboy scoops him up and heads for the medical bays, shouting out commands for ventilators and EKG monitors. Dick remains comatose for the whole thing. As he has done for years judging from the amount of muscle wastage. Minutes go by before they get the ventilator set up and clipped together and his chest is rising and falling in an artificial rhythm.

Tim is shaking. Superboy doesn't feel much better. They know the story of Dick's namesake, his uncle, paralysed and comatose in Gotham General. They know what must have happened to have Dick in this situation.

They call in the league.

...

Batman is furious. He remains behind with the team and Dick while the league begins the hunt for Klarion. For a while the only sound is the 'Hiss – Puff' of the ventilator as it breathes for Dick. It's a sound he's well accustomed to but not when coupled to his boy.

After the explanations there's not really a lot more to be said and so he sits, holding Dick's hand and rubbing his thumb across the boy's knuckles.

Dick disappears from the medical lab at a little before six in the morning.

A little after six there's the sound of wheels across the floor in the corridor outside and low voices talking in urgent tones. Batman looks up to see Dick sitting in the doorway, enveloped in a custom built cradle of steel and wheels and cushions, his friends on all sides.

The boy's eyes are chilled blue flint when he looks at Batman.

"We have to talk."

...

Oracle sheds a lot of light on the situation. They gather in the kitchen, the place of all major discussions within their group

Dick accepts a cup of tea from M'gann with a smile and works his chair to bring himself closer to the table. He takes a sip, then starts. "You believe in the multiverse?"

Batman nods, "The theory that there are infinite realities close to our own."

Dick grins, "That's the one... or the many." He sips again, "We're on a magical mystery tour of the multiverse right now, Boss man, or at least I am. You're just the scenery I guess."

Tim is looking troubled. "How many more stops are there?" He thinking about the talons, Superboy knows because he's thinking the same.

Dick laughs. It's a carefree, childlike cackle and it melts the ice sitting on Superboy's shoulders. "Who knows, but it's gonna be fun finding out. That's the whole point of the adventure, Timbo. Wait..." he looks at Robin a little closer, "You are Tim, right?" Tim nods and Dick grins anew. "I'm not the one driving the caboose, I have a feeling that honour's down to your guy. Is it Nightwing here?"

When they don't reply, he frowns, concerned. Superboy steps forward, "It's Nightwing yes."

Dick smiles again, it looked relieved and Superboy reflects it back with a small one of his own. They might have seen the talons but Oracle has seen the universes they've passed through. Superboy can empathise, he wouldn't like to have a mad assassin in the driver's seat either. "I've been working on a theory for a while." And with that Dick flicks his wrist and brings up not one but five holoscreens. Batman steps forward, standing at Dick's shoulder, one hand resting there lightly. They converse in sparse words but Superboy gets the feeling there's a lot more being said than he can hear.

...

Nightwing is the pendulum and he's been set swinging.

That's the dumbed down explanation they get. It's also the dumb_est_.

The fancy one involves some hefty wielding of quantum physics, some comparison to Newton's laws, and extensive number crunching. But then Dick has always been in his element with math.

In a nutshell though, Nightwing is a pendulum and he's swinging through the multiverse like George through his jungle. Every swing is a different reality and he reaches the peak after twenty four hours before he's pulled back in a different direction. The rest of them are being dragged along in his wake, one after the other in a line, "Ripples in a pond to mix the metaphors, Ha, get it _meta_phors? Sorry Boss." Oracle says with a grin that belies his contrition.

Superboy finds himself smiling at this version of Dick. This is how their Robin used to be, before he became Nightwing, before the secrets and the pressures of leadership took their toll

Back when Dick was happy.

Oracle tells them of the universes he's been pulled through. How Dick's different families in each one are doing the same as they... banding together in his absence and doing their utmost to get them back where they belong. He sets their minds at ease about the talons that came before him and their macabre bragging of the evils they'd done to other incarnations. There'd been no damage, just braggadocio and bluster.

He tells them about his world; how he was crippled in the fall from the trapeze that night at the circus. How Bruce Wayne took him in and gave him a home and a place to rest and recuperate. The doctors were initially optimistic but it's been ten years now and he's had no feeling in his legs the whole time. He shrugs and smiles an easy-going smile when Bruce questions him about the doctors' prognosis and changes the subject, expressing interest in this 'verses Dick Grayson. Suddenly it's their turn to tell him and they fall over each other to sing Nightwing's praises, his prowess, his quick mind and charm, his unequalled acrobatic skill. But he interrupts too much and asks stupid self-depreciating questions and before they know it the chat devolves into a word war the likes of which Young Justice hasn't seen in years. Not prefixes but instead a love of puns and idiom that has them all laughing and trying to one up each other until the early hours of the morning.

Superboy's grin is so wide it hurts at the end of it all.

There's an awkward moment when someone, they blame Tim but personally Superboy thinks it was Oracle, hacks the training footage and they sit there in silence watching Nightwing on the parallel bars and eating pizza that no one remembered ordering.

"Damn," the voice is quiet but no less heartfelt, "Look what I can do."

Superboy covers Dick's hand with his own and squeezes. The skin is tough against his own, covered in calluses. This Dick might be crippled but he's still strong, Once again Superboy feels humble.

Then Oracle sticks his tongue out at him and says, "Didn't think I'd fill out the uniform that well."

Superboy chokes down a laugh. Yeah, maybe not so humble anymore.

..

They know when he'll move on. The others have all left a little before six am and there's nothing to suggest that this time will be any different. At four, Dick starts to say his goodbyes, pulling in Bruce for a hard hug when the man presents his hand for a shake. "You know I don't do that half-hearted crap, Boss man," he says, "It's all or nothing on this hug train."

Bruce laughs and hugs him back. The sound paralyses Tim and he's easily caught in a one armed hug of his own. Superboy picks up on the whispered words Dick tells him accidentally and smiles. This Dick knows Tim well if he's aware of Tim's self-esteem issues, or perhaps he's just that good at reading body language.

Oracle starts to wheel his chair down to Nightwing's room and Superboy follows along, one hand resting on the back of the chair. There are no handles but that's not a surprise. Dick isn't one to sit back and be helpless even in this kind of situation. That's why Dick's request, when it comes, is a surprise.

"Help me in?" He asks, and it takes Superboy a moment to realise he wants assistance into the bed.

"What about the chair when you..." he gestures blindly.

Dick grins; it's bright and warm in the semi dark of the room. "It's considered a part of me. I'll appear in it in the next universe no matter where it is." He laughs, "Took me a while to figure that out. It might look tricked out but it's damn uncomfortable to sleep in. Now..." he raises his arms expectantly, "you gonna help me in or not? I want to get a couple of hours sleep before this starts all over again." he laughs as Superboy scoops him up with ease and pushes the chair to one side with his foot before lowering Oracle into the bed carefully.

Dick's arms are looped around his neck; He's so close Superboy can feel each puff of exhaled air against his cheek. He should pull away but instead he leans in and clings tightly to Dick, feeling those callused fingers carding through his hair.

"I'm going to miss you," he whispers as he pulls away.

Dick shakes his head and fists his hand in Superboy's hair, pulling him down to press their foreheads together. "Don't," he says, "I'm closer than you think."

Superboy stands outside the room for a while, listening to him breathe. Six o'clock comes with an almost physical wrench.

...

The talon doesn't stand a chance with the mood he's in right now.

...

Klarion proves to be tricky to find. They ask Dr. Fate for answers. He gives them, but that doesn't mean they have to like them.

They call off the search. Klarion would be no help.

This is all down to Dick.

...

Sometimes Nightwing asks where Wally is. He always seems surprised when they tell him. Artemis leaves early on those days.

...

They're getting used to the different Nightwings every morning, which is why the presence of the thirteen year old Robin at the breakfast table one day stuns them all into silence.

He lifts his trouser leg with an easy cheer, showing off his prosthetic limb, and laughs that eerie cackle when Roy punches the air in vindication.

"Clone, ya see, I _told_ you!" He crows, holding his hand out, palm up, to Tim, who slaps the ten dollar bill onto it with a curse.

Robin rolls his eyes and gets back to his cereal. It's obviously not the first time that's happened to him.

...

The pattern is changing now. They don't know whether it's a good thing or bad but the switches are taking longer; thirteen year old Robin stayed with them for two days, Target stayed with them for three. Either the swing is beginning to settle back to normal or it's running out of juice.

Either option is ok to Superboy at the moment.

More mornings than most lately are Nightwing-less. Dr. Fate had explained more about the situation, clarifying Oracle's initial assessment.

Nightwing was now meta.

Klarion's lightning strike had brought something out in him but he was untrained and unused to his ability, careening without direction through the multiverse. They had no way of knowing where he was going next and no way of setting up any kind of safety net for him. The only one who could pull him back from this was himself.

They still held out hope but it dwindled every morning when his room remained empty.

For the only worlds he could visit were worlds that had a physical counterpart to send to his own world. It was a cold draft of reality on the idea of a regular human partaking in superhero activities when they realised that there were more worlds in the multiverse where Dick had died than there were ones where he was living.

Superboy thought back to Oracle's visit often nowadays. He wondered how Oracle was holding up in the universes he was trawling through now, he wondered if Dick ever thought about him or if all the Superboys in all the 'verses were beginning to blur together; he wondered if they'd ever get another breath of that easy cheer they'd had the night they'd sat as a group and watched Nightwing on the parallels.

But most of all he wondered, if Nightwing died out there, would they ever know?

...

They didn't get Nightwings anymore. They didn't get Robin's or Renegades, Oracles, Targets, or Talons, even the single guy they'd called 'S'.

All they got were Dick Grayson's.

Dick's paths in the multiverse were splitting off from this earth's earlier and earlier now. He'd stopped dying in the other worlds, Superboy mused, so that was a bonus. The downside was he didn't really know them. Oh, he recognised them well enough, he claimed to have seen reports of them on TV even before this whole multiverse bumper car ride had started but he didn't _know_ them like Nightwing did.

They smile a lot and humour him but there's an impatience behind it all as they tick off the hours until Dick Grayson circus acrobat is gone and they get the next guy.

...

The twins were a shock.

The split in the multiverse was a lot further back there and yet Nightwing was back. Tim grinned fiercely when the two boys, Richard and Robin Grayson, told him how they played things out, switching up the roles between themselves. They shared their day job at Bludhaven's Police Dept. and the night job on the rooftops of Bludhaven and Gotham. Of course most of their colleagues at the BPD thought that Dick Grayson Rookie Cop was a complete and utter moron who couldn't remember a conversation beyond a day... but the eight hours of sleep a night more than made up for it.

They shared everything it seemed. It was strange to see them finishing each other's sentences off or looping their arms over Tim's shoulders. It was like seeing in stereo, Superboy decided.

Roy insisted again, "Clones. It all comes down to that in the end."

Secretly Superboy agreed.

...

If the twins are a shock then the teenage girl in Nightwing's outfit is a bombshell... in more ways than one.

Batman runs her DNA through the system and it comes back with only one difference to Dick Grayson's. Still a major difference though.

She is small, smaller than Tim, but strong and fit with hair only a little longer than Dick's had been and with just as much of a non-style. Her eyes are large and luminous and she poses with Tim and Superboy when Roy asks if he can take her picture for the family photo album. Tim is blushing a rather bright fuchsia and she ruffles his hair and plants a kiss on his forehead, murmuring about crushes.

"What's your name?" Superboy asks later on that night, because surely she can't be named Richard. He might not know much about everyday life but he knows that there are certain names that are not meant for girls, just as you can't name a boy Sue, no matter what the song says, naming a girl Dick is just... wrong.

She laughs and flips up to the back of the sofa moving down into a vertical push up. He looks at the muscles in her arms, small but strong, capable. He thinks of Richard Grayson and his stick thin arms and legs. "My parents were circus performers with little sense of societal no-no's," she says. "My father promised he'd name his first born after his brother. What do you think my name is?"

He scrunches his nose up in thought; she laughs again and moves until she's in her lift, her hands on Superboy's shoulders. Bending down she rubs her nose against his and whispers, "You can call me Dicky."

She stays with them for nine days and Superboy is almost sad to see her go.

Almost...except that's the day Dick comes back.

...

They've stopped checking his room every morning. The switches are too random now so instead they have a sliding roster where each member of the team will spend a night in the room in a spare bed in the corner.

Superboy wakes up that morning to the sound of someone crashing and thudding around. He cracks open an eye, ready to ream into Dicky for offending his auditory senses at such an hour, but his words die half way out as he sees a half-naked male Nightwing hopping about the room, failing in his attempts at taking off his outfit.

"The hell..." he starts, but he's cut off by a giddy noise from Nightwing and the sensation of two warm hands cupping his face.

Then Nightwing is gone, charging from the room, a pair of slacks and a t-shirt - on backwards and inside out - replacing the Nightwing uniform.

Superboy sits there for a second, feeling the warmth of Dick's hands on his face still. Then he blinks, realising... and a second later there are two members of Young Justice tearing about the place, shrieking and whooping like the barely grown children they are.

Batman comes, and Alfred, Superman is on the way and the rest of the Young Justice team stand there grinning and jittering... but none more than Dick himself. The swinging door sensation he's felt for so long is gone, the door is closed - not locked, he's not sure how to do that anymore - but it'll take some opening again.

Tim is all over him suddenly, charging in from the zeta room, face buried in Dick's chest, Dick's arms wrapped tightly around him. There's the sound of whispered words and Tim makes a choked sob and clutches tighter, knuckles whitening around his fistfuls of Dick's shirt.

Batman looks pleased and proud. Dick moves one arm from around Tim and throws it around his mentor, bringing him into the circle. Alfred follows...then the rest of Young Justice.

Dick grins fiercely.

...

Dr. Fate confirms it. The anomaly is over, the ripples have faded and everyone is back where they're supposed to be.

Superboy thinks about Oracle and hopes he made it back ok. He thinks about Robin the girl wonder and the twins, the talons and S. Richard Grayson. He thinks about Dick.

He thinks about Dick a lot.

...

Batman has dragged Nightwing off to the cave for tests. They don't see him for a week or so but he makes sure to call every day to talk to them. The talks start out with most of the crew there but they invariably end with Superboy alone in the monitor room. They compare stories and Dick smiles when Superboy tells him about Oracle and the word war. "Dude, that's nothing, it's so on when I get back." he tells him. Superboy grins, it feels like that's all he's been doing lately but he can't help it.

"I missed you," he says.

Dick's face grows serious at that and Superboy sees the same strength of conviction in him that he saw in Oracle so long ago. Dick's hand reaches out to rest on the monitor and he closes his eyes. His jaw works, as if he's thinking of the right words to say, but what comes out is "Goodnight, Conner." The screen goes dark.

Conner sits there for a while, wondering what happened.

...

Batman has been training him. Tim shows up one day angry and afraid and tells them.

"The one thing more dangerous than a meta is a meta with no concept of his powers," Batman had said. Dick had agreed. So now they are pushing his limitations, opening that door again and again and seeing just what comes out.

Superboy shivers and M'gann lays her hand on his. Dick is a meta now, with a power that hasn't really been fully explored or understood, but a power that took him away from them for over a year on its first use.

He doesn't want to know just what it will do second time around.

Dick refuses to talk to him about it and the calls at night dwindle to nothing.

...

They're sitting in the rec room watching TV when Dick runs in shouting for Artemis. She stands up, a little bemused as he drags her to one corner. His hands grip her arms tightly as he talks almost Flash fast and Superboy watches with a cold sinking feeling in his stomach as she pales and grips him back, shaking his shoulders.

He grins, and it's a fierce thing, jubilant but wrong, edged in fear. Superboy doesn't like it.

She's crying now and M'gann is getting up to see what's wrong. The TV is forgotten. Artemis turns and Superboy's chill turns ice cold and hard as she says, "Dick can bring Wally back."

...

Dick is pale. Too pale, and his eyes have purple shadows underneath them. He's not sleeping, not eating, he's scared. But he's going to do this anyway and Superboy is terrified.

They kit him out with a communicator, "Just in case," although what good it will do him in another reality is anyone's guess, and pretend not to notice the tremor in his hands. Superboy grips Dick's forearm tightly. There are so many things he wants to say but Dick doesn't need to hear them right now so he settles for "Good luck."

Dick nods, a tight jerky movement, and grins. "You too." He flicks the communicator on and off, a final test, then turns to face nothing. "You better get back," he says over his shoulder, "I don't want to pull you in if something goes wrong." Superboy can hear his heartbeat racing.

It matches his own. He steps back, his feet crunching in the snow underfoot. Further than he wants to go but not as far as Dick would like.

...

It's just like the security footage Tim showed them back when they were still trying to figure out what was going on. There's no glow but Dick is flickering somehow, like a bad picture on an old TV. It's a pretty good metaphor, Superboy thinks, reminded of Oracle. Dick is literally flicking through the realities like flicking through the channels of a television.

He has his eyes closed and Superboy wonders how he can tell he's reached the right plane.

But then he opens his eyes and _reaches_. His arm pierces through the air and there's a blinding light and a crackle of energy along with a cry. Dick sinks to one knee and the light goes out. He's up before Superboy even realises he's taken a step forward, holding his hand out to stop him from coming any closer. "Wasn't expecting it to be so..." he shakes his head, firms his stance and starts again.

He's reaching in, breaking the very fabric of space and time to a point where the world was nearly destroyed. There are so many things that could go wrong; Superboy would have dragged him back if he wasn't so afraid it would just make things worse. Because Dick is gritting his teeth and there's sweat beading on his brow as the light and the wind breaks through the barrier in front of him. His feet slide forward a little but he reaches again and Superboy can hear him muttering, "Please don't go please don't go please don't go." Conner isn't sure whether Dick's talking to Wally or himself.

Dick's feet skid forward again, he's nearly on the cusp and shaking from the effort.

Superboy's running before he even realises it. His arms clasp Dick around the waist and he throws his weight back with all his might. The wind is roaring around them now and he screams in Dick's ear, "You crazy sonofabat, Do it if you're gonna do it."

There's a pull. His feet scrabble for purchase against the snow, but Dick is holding onto something, reaching forward with his other hand to grab it securely. And it's holding him back.

Superboy feels his feet losing ground and tightens his grip. He's not going to lose this crazy idiot again, if it means they both go then so be it. Then there are hands around his waist and he feels an anchor pulling him back. M'gann and Kaldur have linked arms around a sturdy piece of ice and are holding him firm. His feet leave the ground but he doesn't care. He clings tighter.

Abruptly the tornado around them is gone. Dick drops to his knees and rests his forehead against the snow, there's blood coming from somewhere, he thinks he ruptured a capillary but his hand shakes too much when he reaches up to wipe it away so he lets it be. There are feet in front of him, yellow feet.

Wally West is standing in front of them looking more than a little confused.

And Dick throws his head back and laughs like he hasn't done in years.

...

There are wads of tissue stuck up his nose and he feels like he's been run through a mangle six ways to Sunday but Dick is grinning like a fool when Superboy walks into the med lab that evening.

He hadn't remembered much of the journey home. As soon as he'd tried to stand up the world had tilted sideways and he'd come to lying on a bed in the back of the bioship. Superboy had been sitting next to him.

"You crazy idiot," he'd said.

Dick had laughed, "Crazy Bat'stard." he'd corrected, and groaned when he realised he had a migraine.

Superboy's fingers had carded through his bangs and he'd smiled. Not one of Dick's newly rediscovered blindingly bright smiles, but a small one that was nonetheless just as potent. "_My_ crazy bat'stard." He stood up and dimmed the lights. "Now get some sleep, we're nearly back and I think Batman is going to kill you."

He'd laughed but obeyed.

Superboy sits down beside him and Dick grins. "How's Wally?"

"Good. Flash and Impulse are feeding him up. He's getting_ real_ Chinese food, and they won't let me have any." He sounded put out but Dick could see the smile playing around his lips. "Can we talk about this?" he asks and his voice is low and quiet, almost timid.

Dick reaches out to cover Conner's hand with his own and squeezes. Conner feels the rub of calluses against his skin and sucks in a deep, shaky breath.

"I missed you," Dick says.

Conner smiles back at him and brushes the stubborn bangs from Dick's eyes, "I'm closer than you think."

And suddenly words aren't needed.


End file.
